Mouse Scampers on Giant Trackball, Plays Quake

Lab mice can say goodbye to clunky old non-virtual mazes

By Paul Adams Posted 10.14.2009 at 2:00 pm 10 Comments

Mouse in Virtual Maze: David Tank

In this video, a mouse runs through a virtual maze derived from a Quake 2 level, by steering a trackball suspended on a jet of air. Obviously the Princeton scientists did this because it's awesome, but the ostensible reason is because it gives them unprecedented access to study the neurological activity of the rodent while it moves around.

Neuroscientist David Tank was able to study the individual neurons in the hippocampus that control motion; a scientific feat that hasn't previously been achieved. The neurons of mice scurrying through a real maze jostle around too much, so this system, where the maze moves and the mouse is stationary (held in place by a little collar) is a triumph.

I think I've played against this mouse.

[via Wired]

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10 Comments

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Zengrath

10/14/09 at 3:06 pm

I don't get it... it's just going in circles, mouse doesn't seem to change directions at all on the ball.. This is not a maze and doesn't seem to really prove anything at all...

Be much more interested if they actually made a maze, and rewarded mice with food when it reached a particular place in level or giant piece of cheese, lol. Then that would be something actually intersting seeing the mouse navigate objects and such, but in this video mouse simply turns right indefinitely in a circle?!

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Q42

10/14/09 at 3:13 pm

It's tough when the oversized trackball under your feet keeps slipping out from under you. I can only imagine that making turns on that thing must be difficult, since once it starts spinning one way, the ball tends to want to keep going in that direction.

Or are they just showing the same twenty seconds of footage in a loop?

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animemaster

10/14/09 at 3:58 pm

They should put it in a real game. Get it addicted to something and give him the drug when he gets a kill. Use a little mousy taser to shock em when he dies. It would be funny seeing it kick ass vs human players. Now that would be science.

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sirald66

10/14/09 at 5:27 pm

Not quite so extreme, but I tend to agree with AnimeMaster.

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greenmachine

from Holland, Michigan

10/15/09 at 8:17 am

It looks like the mouse is just running on some ball. Doesn't look at all like its actually running the "maze". It seems to me that it is trying to get out of its harness, but can't get any traction on the ball.

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Kickstand27

10/15/09 at 1:57 pm

poor poor mouse.. in a real maze at least he can physically get out of it.. virtual maze? not so much. "it smells like ive been here before"

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